Sunday, January 4, 2015

It's Time to Remove Boehner

The House of Representatives may be under Republican control, but it lacks any semblance of principled leadership. In fact, fiscally conservative and libertarian-leaning members -- the ideas wing of the GOP -- have faced an increasingly hostile environment under Republican leadership, one in which they're treated as obstacles rather than allies to advance the limited government policies that Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and his team purportedly believe. Read more here...

December’s disgraceful CRomnibus debacle fresh in mind, House conservatives may finally be ready to hand the most powerful gavel in the House from John Boehner to a more principled leader when they vote for Speaker of the House on January 6th. Replacing Boehner is both possible and necessary for a multitude of reasons, but it’s important to understand how the vote works in order to counter the misinformation that has already started coming from those with a vested interest in keeping the status quo. Read more here...

We all know that Congress has some big ticket items on its agenda for next year - repealing ObamaCare, balancing the budget, reining the president’s executive authority, but receiving less attention than perhaps they should are a number of smaller regulatory battles in which the new Republican majority could make a real difference.

Below are five battles that are shaping up in the new year, where Republicans have indicated an eagerness to fight to roll back some of the Obama administration’s most egregious regulations. Read more here...

Net neutrality may yield unintended consequences that generate benefits for some while imposing substantial costs on others. Most importantly, price controls would push all costs to end users in the name of net neutrality. Unfortunately, these price controls would have the effect that price controls always have on the workings of the market—less output, less innovation, and less investment in the infrastructure critical for the deployment of broadband. Much has changed in how the internet is used, yet new mandates threaten to lock in an architecture that may limit the deployment of new technology.Watch here...

Another year is upon us, and with it a new Congress under new-ish management. Although the dude who ultimately signs the bills isn’t going to put his autograph on many of the good things that a Republican Congress may pass, there is still plenty that the new Congress can accomplish next year.

ObamaCare: Republicans can and should use the budget process known as “reconciliation” to put a bill repealing ObamaCare on President Obama’s desk. Forcing Democrats to keep defending (or, even better, not defending) the government takeover of health care is essential, as the distortions ObamaCare is causing in America's health care system become ever more evident. Read more here...

When the new Congress convenes in January there will be a new dynamic at play, with the Republican-controlled legislature squaring off against a Democrat administration. Clearly, there should be opportunities for Republicans to coalesce behind popular reforms that may have been stymied by Harry Reid's Senate. Of these, tax reform is perhaps most sorely needed, but will the new Congress be willing to tackle the current tax code? Judging by the comments from incoming Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, the outlook may be bleak. Read more here...

Before the initial ObamaCare open enrollment period, the Obama administration emphasized the need for millennials -- young people between the ages of 18 and 34 -- to sign up for health plans available on the exchanges. Health insurance companies need diversity in their risk pools to offset costs, because older and sicker people tend to utilize their coverage more often than the young and healthy.Read more here...

Laurence H. Tribe, of Harvard Law School, strongly believes our Constitution and the Rule of Law must prevail over Federal bureaucrats regulating power plant's CO2 emissions in every state. Tribe writes there is no legislative authority granting the EPA the power to regulate. In fact the statutes clearly denies the EPA from regulating power plants. Read more here...

Over the last several years, Common Core education standards have become an increasingly important issue for parents and teachers, as they see how children are affected by the policy. Yet, the details of what exactly Common Core is, how it works and how it came to be remain hopelessly complex and difficult for the novice to understand. In the face of slick advertising campaigns by Common Core’s corporate backers and lofty speeches from politicians, the truth can be difficult to ferret out. With the new book, “Common Ground on Common Core,” we finally have a handy, one-volume resource that answers all these questions and more. Read more here...

Following the lead of the Rev. Al Sharpton, thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to protest grand jury decisions regarding the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and physical restraint death of Eric Garner in New York, by white police officers.

With chants of “Black lives matter” and “No justice, no peace,” demonstrators are expressing their frustration with what they regard as a system gamed against black Americans. Underlying the social unrest is a weak economic recovery that has left blacks behind. Blacks have the highest unemployment rate, the lowest average income and the lowest rate of homeownership. Read more here...

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